T.A.S.K.

T.A.S.K. Turkish Association for Secularism and Kemalism

T.A.S.K. Turkish Association for Secularism and Kemalism Turkish Association for Secularism and Kemalism

T.A.S.K. Turkish Association for Secularism and Kemalism Objectives • emphasizing the need and importance of secularism in protecting human rights, freedoms and democracy • informing the academic community at PSU and urging them to take action against radical religious activities all around the world

T.A.S.K. Turkish Association for Secularism and Kemalism Secularism Secularity does not only mean the separation of religious and state affairs, but also the respect for freedom of moral sense, worship and religion for every individual. Religion is a moral value and religious practice is a private matter between the person and the divine being in which he/she believes. Religion shall never be used in an official capacity to enforce one group's religious opinions or beliefs on another even though the group in demand is in majority.

T.A.S.K. Turkish Association for Secularism and Kemalism Kemalism • defined, described, interpreted and restated by • the association and its members as follows: • Secularism. • Real love of peace and mankind. • Peace in the nation, peace in the world. Mankind is a single body and each nation a part of that body. • Being scientific and rational. • Reformism.

T.A.S.K. Presents Turkish Association for Secularism and Kemalism THE OPTIMIST He never tore wings off flies when he was little, Nor tied cans to cats’ tails, Nor kept cockroaches in matchboxes, He didn’t destroy ants’ nests. When he grew up They did all that to him. I was by his deathbed. ‘Read me a poem’ he said, ‘About the sun, the sea About mankind’s great achievements’

T.A.S.K. Turkish Association for Secularism and Kemalism NAZIM HIKMET AHMED ARIF EDIP CANSEVER PIR SULTAN ABDAL CEMAL SUREYYA PABLO NERUDA

T.A.S.K. Turkish Association for Secularism and Kemalism GULTEN AKIN AKGUN AKOVA ORHAN VELI KANIK BEHCET NECATIGIL ATAOL BEHRAMOGLU MURATHAN MUNGAN

The water flowed, It showed Willow trees in its mirror, Weeping willows washing their hair in the stream. Red riders raced towards the sinking sun, Their flaming swords drawn to strike the willows. Suddenly like a bird shot in the wing a wounded horseman tumbled from his horse. He did not shout, Or call after those who passed, He just looked with brimming eyes At the flashing hooves of the riders receding. Alas! Alas that he Will never lay again foaming necks of his galloping horses, Or brandish his sword chasing after the white armies! Gradually hoof beats die away, The riders are lost in the sunset. NAZIM HIKMET 1902/1963 WEEPING WILLOW

Horsemen, horsemen, red riders, Horses wind winged Horses wind wing… Horses wind.. Horses… Horse… Life passed like the wind winged horsemen. The sound of the running water stopped. Shadows grew denser Colors were wiped away. Black blinds came down, On his blue eyes, The weeping willows leant Over his fair hair. Don’t weep weeping willow, Don’t weep, In the dark mirror of water, don’t fold your hands, don’t fold your hands, don’t weep.

Do you know you live in me bit by bit Yet there is such a thing as being lovely with you For instance we drink raki and it is As if a carnation were engulfing us. Beside us a tree works with precision Mind and belly lose sense and sway. You are bent on that carnation, I take it And give it to you. You then pass it on To someone else. And a greater beauty is reached. Do you know, that someone else forwards it again And lo the carnation quickens from hand to hand. As you can see we augment this love With warmth I dwell upon you, but that is not it Look how like seven colors into white translated Each into each silently we cast our unison. EDIP CANSEVER 1928/1985 THE GRAVITATIONAL CARNATION

I walked away you forgot your hands on my faceI felt ashamed of my sorrowsashamed of my lonelinesssuddenly in the ruthless wisdom of our teensI felt ashamedof the dreams that poured out those maledictions of love of the rain.you forgot your marbles on my faceyou forgot your smell in my lifepouring a gallon of gasoline on my memoriesI set fire to our joys. I attached to your hairthe whole splendor of my favorite sorrow, its winds,there, yours is the autumn alsowhat else do you want of methere, yours is the most attractive suicide also KUCUK ISKENDER 1965 BEEYOU TEEFUL

I walked away you forgot your islands on my faceyou forgot your eyes in my pastI felt ashamed of my desiresof my advanced ageand of the rain I am sick and tiredand you: sepia jazz kid abandoned by the cityyou forgot every chance you had in my unexpected death!they packed me and took me somewhereon my face you forgot your future

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where it came from, from winter or a river. I don't know how or when, no, they were not voices, they were not words, nor silence, but from a street I was summoned, from the branches of night, abruptly from the others, among violent fires or returning alone, there I was without a face and it touched me. PABLO NERUDA 1904/1973 POETRY

I did not know what to say, my mouth had no way with names my eyes were blind, and something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings, and I made my own way, deciphering that fire and I wrote the first faint line, faint, without substance, pure nonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing, and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open, planets, palpitating plantations, shadow perforated, riddled with arrows, fire and flowers, the winding night, the universe. And I, infinitesmal being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, I felt myself a pure part of the abyss, I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke free on the open sky.

I had a belovedwho sent me the sand of his hometown I, however, always wondered about the wind of that land whether it was tamed crazy continuous whether it appeared suddenly in the sky hurling what it gathered from the ground there were cities we later shared the wind masterful I inexperienced it swept by violently, came and went filling my eyes with sand GULTEN AKIN 1933 SAND

if one day our love flies away from us, my love, like smoke with a rucksack at its back if our love goes away, my love, somewhere we haven't dreamt of like the dust fallen off from the wing of a butterfly hit by an angel or like a broken branch floating in a waterfall trust only your wings life is a door handle which we hold tightly at the edge of a void we created ourselves and love, a violin that fell into our deepest well when the roads we walk on get narrower and the stairs we step on collapse my love trust only your wings AKGUN AKOVA 1962 TRUST ONLY YOUR WINGS

lovers know that spring is a shower of birds the taboos created by those who are unable to love disappear in the childish shades of summer and love goes to pieces in our mouths as autumn dissolves like a piece of yellow candy and if there is talk of an unending winter, my love, beloved, trust only your wings when I hold out my hand to show you the ships there's a captain at the helm fainted by the odor of blood in the horizon a country floating towards the heart of fire and a swarm of locusts coming out of the suitcases as the feathers of doves hit by fighters in the air scatter away my love comb your hair on the ever-changing maps and trust only your wings if they take me away one day with my hands tied to places unknown by my poems and every other soul stand on the rusty shoulder of the world like a migratory bird flown out from my forehead and when you take off heading for my absence fear not, my love fear not trust only your wings

Before dawn, While the sea is still snow-white, you will set sail; The grip of the oars in your palms, And in your heart the joy of toil and vigor, You will go. In the roll and sway of the nets, you will go. For welcome, fish will appear on your course Delighting you. As you shake the nets, Scale by scale, the sea will journey into your hands. ORHAN VELI KANIK 1914/1950 TOWARDS FREEDOM

When silence pervades the souls of seagulls In the cemetery of the rocks, All of a sudden, All hell will break loose on the horizon: Mermaids will scuttle and birds scurry... Saturnalia and festivals, orgies and carnivals, Bridal processions, masquerades, revelries, carousals... Heeeyy! Whaddya waiting for, man, jump in the sea! Forget who's waiting for you back there. Don't you see: Freedom is all around you. Be the sail, the oar, the rudder, the fish, the water, And go, go wherever you can.

Brothers Do not pay attention to my blonde hair I am an Asian Do not pay attention to my blue eyes I am an African There is no shadow under the trees where I live just like the ones in your place In our land the bread is in lion’s mouth Dragons wait at the fountains and people live only fifty years just like the ones in your place Do not pay attention to my blonde hair I am an Asian Do not pay attention to my blue eyes I am an African eighty percent do not know how to read and write poems learned by word of mouth becoming folk songs poems could become flags where I live just like the ones in your place NAZIM HIKMET 1902/1963 BROTHERS

Brothers your poems should be able to till the soil next to underfed oxen they should be able to get into swamps in rice fields up to their knees They should be able to ask all the questions They should be able to collect all the light They should be able to stand in street corners Just like milestones our poems They should be able to identify the approaching enemy they should be able to play the drums and till there is no human who is not free and till there are no more nuclear clouds they should be able to give their possessions money mind and life for the great freedom , our poems

There’s something I have learned from what I’ve lived: If you’re to live something, live it to its fullest Your beloved should fall exhausted from your kisses You should fall exhausted from smelling a flower One can watch the sky for hours Can for hours watch the sea, a bird, a child To live on earth is to mingle with it Growing roots that cannot be eradicated When you hug a friend you should hug him vigorously You should fight with all your muscles, body, passion And once you stretch out on the hot sand You should rest like a grain of sand, a leaf, a stone ATAOL BEHRAMOGLU 1942 THERE’S SOMETHING I HAVE LEARNED FROM WHAT I’VE LIVED

One should listen to all the beautiful music on earth So as to fill all his being with sounds and songs One should dive into life as if Diving from a rock into an emerald sea Distant lands should lure you, people you do not know You should burn with the desire to read all the books, to know all the lives You should not exchange for anything the pleasure of drinking a glass of water All the joys should fill you with the yearning to live And you should live grief also, with honor, with all your being For grief also, like joy, matures a person Your blood should mingle with the great circulation of life In your veins must circulate the eternal fresh blood of life There is something I have learned from what I’ve lived: If you’re to live, live big, as if you are mingling with the rivers, the sky, the whole universe For what we call a life span is a gift to life And life is a gift to mankind

Your love never left me. I hungered and thirstedin the treacherous, dark night. My soul was stranger, my soul was silentmy soul was shattered... And my hands were handcuffed I was without tobacco or sleep but your love never left me... AHMED ARIF 1927/1991 YOUR LOVE NEVER LEFT ME

You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs? and the poppy-petal led metaphysics? and the rain repeatedly spattering its words and drilling them full of apertures and birds? I'll tell you all the news. I lived in a suburb, a suburb of Madrid, with bells, and clocks, and trees. From there you could look out over Castille's dry face: a leather ocean. My house was called the house of flowers, because in every cranny geraniums burst: it was a good-looking house with its dogs and children. Remember, Raul? Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember from under the ground my balconies on which the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth? PABLO NERUDA 1904/1973 I'M EXPLAINING A FEW THINGS

Brother, my brother! Everything loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises, pile-ups of palpitating bread, the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake: oil flowed into spoons, a deep baying of feet and hands swelled in the streets, meters, liters, the sharp measure of life, stacked-up fish, the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which the weather vane falters, the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes, wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea. And one morning all that was burning, one morning the bonfire slept out of the earth devouring human beings --and from then on fire, gunpowder from then on, and from then on blood. Bandits with planes and Moors, bandits with finger-rings and duchesses, bandits with black friars spattering blessings came through the sky to kill children and the blood of children ran through the streets without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise, stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out, vipers that the vipers would abominate! Face to face with you I have seen the blood of Spain tower like a tideto drown you in one wave of pride and knives! Treacherous generals: see my dead house, look at broken Spain :from every house burning metal flows instead of flowers, from every socket of Spain Spain emerges and from every dead child a rifle with eyes, and from every crime bullets are born which will one day find the bull's eye of your hearts. And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry speak of dreams and leave sand the great volcanoes of his native land? Come and see the blood in the streets. Come and see The blood in the streets. Come and see the blood In the streets!

…It is sometime after midnight I can hear the voices of the cars The voice of the water that the tires splash It rained like crazy today Sky was like an ocean You know, they say that nature cries when it rains I don’t think nature cares who is leaving or who is dead This is just sweet dreams of human being Right now I am writing you Even though I don’t know whom you love, but I know you don’t love me I know from the night, the candle, the clock And from all the hearts filled with pain I know you did not love me anyways. MURAT YASAR 1980 THE DARK NIGHT Translated by :SULE ERGUN

The rough man entered the lover's garden It is woods now, my beautiful one, it is woods, Gathering roses, he has broken their stems They are dry now, my beautiful one, they are dry In this square our hide is stretched Blessed be, we saw our friend off to God One day, too, black dust must cover us We will rot, my beautiful one, we will rot He himself reads and He also writes God's holy hand has closed her crescent eyebrows Your peers are wandering in Paradise They are free, my beautiful one, they are free PIR SULTAN ABDAL

Whatever religion you are, I'll worship it too I will be torn off with you even the Day of Judgement Bend for once, let me kiss you on your white neck Just stay there for a moment, my beautiful one, just stay there I'm Pir Sultan Abdal, I start from the root I eat the kernel and throw out the evil weed And weave from a thousand flowers to one hive honey I am an honest bee, my beautiful one, an honest bee.

It looks like Our wager will take some time Leaving work and occupation I moved to a house facing the cemetery Death you can not cheat me The wager is still on BEHCET NECATIGIL 1916/1979 THE WAGER

Summer is waning, fall as for us Russian dolls who never grow at all in a dream we met and in a dream we parted come on, it's time that one of us should wake the other up each of us inside the darkness of the other captive each of us inside the snowdrift of the other buried far from the long winters of different ilk for each cocoon come on, it's time that one of us should wake the other up the writs of our youth have passed. The farms are now deserted the nests of the storks emptied with the falling rains we have questions now at hand; each day keeps doling out to us what's written down for those who linger on summer's ending summer's ending summer's ending Well I know itagain a June again July and once more august MURATHAN MUNGAN 1955 THE END OF SUMMER

Remember that little girl at Afyon train station, Who took off her shoes when she got on the train; Think of the Varto earthquake, a box of milk powder, And a bra sent as charity by the West. The man whitewashed the walls of his house with the milk powder, His wife kept the bra that was unknown to her, She planned to use it as earmuffs in winter; My God, was it really in your childhood days?... Lots of people sitting on thresholds I wish I would have loved you just for this. CEMAL SUREYA 1931/1990 AT AFYON TRAIN STATION

I Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel, for example- I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean living must be your whole occupation. Living is no laughing matter: you must take it seriously, so much so and to such a degree that, for example, your hands tied behind your back, your back to the wall, or else in a laboratory in your white coat and safety glasses, you can die for people- even for people whose faces you've never seen, even though you know living is the most real, the most beautiful thing. I mean, you must take living so seriously that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees- and not for your children, either, but because although you fear death you don't believe it, because living, I mean, weighs heavier. NAZIM HIKMET 1902/1963 ON LEAVING

II We'll know this with a curious anger, but we'll still worry ourselves to death about the outcome of the war, which could last years. Let's say we're in prison and close to fifty, and we have eighteen more years, say, before the iron doors will open. We'll still live with the outside, with its people and animals, struggle and wind- I mean with the outside beyond the walls. I mean, however and wherever we are, we must live as if we will never die. Let's say you're seriously ill, need surgery - which is to say we might not get from the white table. Even though it's impossible not to feel sad about going a little too soon, we'll still laugh at the jokes being told, we'll look out the window to see it's raining, or still wait anxiously for the latest newscast ... Let's say we're at the front- for something worth fighting for, say. There, in the first offensive, on that very day, we might fall on our face, dead.

III This earth will grow cold, a star among stars and one of the smallest, a gilded mote on blue velvet- I mean this, our great earth. This earth will grow cold one day, not like a block of ice or a dead cloud even but like an empty walnut it will roll along in pitch-black space ... You must grieve for this right now -you have to feel this sorrow now- for the world must be loved this much if you're going to say ``I lived'' ...

Neither to be Tahir is a shame Nor being Zuhre Even to die Because of love is not shameful, The thing is to be able to be Tahir and Zuhre That is due to the heart. For instance while fighting at a barricade Or while going out to explore the North Pole For example while trying a serum in your veins Is it a shame to die? You love the world at your full speed But it is not aware of that You do not want to be separated from world But it will from you Namely because of the fact that you like apple Is it necessary for the apple to like you? That is if Zuhre did not love Tahir anymore Else never loved What could Tahir lose from his own? NAZIM HIKMET 1902/1963 MATTER OF TAHIR AND ZUHRE

Today is Sunday. For the first time they took me out into the sun today. And for the first time in my life I was aghast that the sky is so far away and so blue and so vast I stood there without a motion. Then I sat on the ground with respectful devotion leaning against the white wall. Who cares about the waves with which I yearn to roll Or about strife or freedom or my wife right now. The soil, the sun and me... I feel joyful and how. NAZIM’S GRAVE IN MOSCOW TODAY IS SUNDAY

T.A.S.K. Presents Turkish Association for Secularism and Kemalism THE OPTIMIST He never tore wings off flies when he was little, Nor tied cans to cats’ tails, Nor kept cockroaches in matchboxes, He didn’t destroy ants’ nests. When he grew up They did all that to him. I was by his deathbed. ‘Read me a poem’ he said, ‘About the sun, the sea About mankind’s great achievements’

T.A.S.K.

T.A.S.K.

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T.A.S.K.